Friday, January 28, 2011

Hey guys sorry I haven't written in the last three days! I was doing so well then I messed it all up didn't I!? Anyway this one is going to be very short because I am exhausted and am going to watch a movie and go to sleep. The last couple days have been hectic and I haven't felt great, on top of that I pulled a muscle in my back which has made my running not really happen! I am afraid I am going to lose my mile! I also plan to do some baking this weekend because I need to! Anyway the florist is now picked YAY! I am excited. We also found this great local cake lady on craigslist and are going to try her out and see how she is! Her pictures are really amazing though! Also cheaper than like the bigger ones :-). Anyway I am glad for a weekend I need a nice relaxing one! Well off to bed! Night night all! I promise to write more interesting stuff tomorrow!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Hey Y'all! Sorry I didn't write more last night I ran to Hastings and bought me When in Rome and Knight and Day. If you love used movie deals they have buy one used get next used for $1. I was pretty happy. Then I stopped by Hobby Lobby! Awful idea I think I could get lost and spend all my money in that store. Therefore I have decided I need a job that I make lots of money so I can spend it all at Hobby Lobby and Michael's! I will take a picture of what all I got but it is for Valentine's Day! All of their Valentine's Day stuff is 30% off! So go while you can! I got a cookie pan for Valentine shaped cookies, heart box and heard stuffing to send my grandparents some cookies, and cupcake Valentine box carriers for under $20! I could have spent so much more but I had to make myself leave! Then I went home and made Adam some more green chili stew and cornbread!

Anyway I decided to join Tasty Tuesday! blog hop and the Delectable Tuesday! blog hop! You guys should check them out! I will post a button for them after my recipe!

Pork Chops & Green Beans & Mushroom Soup

Pork Chops

Garlic

Soy Sauce

Onion Flakes

Pepper

Frozen Green Beans

1 Can Mushroom Soup

1. I personally like the really thin pork chops but it is up to you what one you chose. Anyway I usually have them in the freezer so I put them in a big Ziplock Freezer bag and I fill the sink with hot water.

Then I pour enough soy sauce in the bag to cover them when they are laying in the water and then I pour in some garlic powder. Now how much on both you use is up to you I always say the more the better.

2. After the pork chops have thawed, line a baking pan with aluminum foil. Now I cook mine on 375 but it seems to vary on different pork chop recipe's so up to you!

3. Put the pork chops on the baking pan and throw away the extra juice. I like to make sure mine has some juice on them when I pull them out of the bag.

4. Sprinkle pepper, garlic and onion flakes on top of the pork chops. Once again up to you how much I think it taste really good with a lot of garlic :-). But then again I LOVE garlic.

5. I usually cook mine about 30-45 minutes. My oven cooks super fast so I just go by how they look I usually know they are done when the excess juice has turned brown around them, but once again depends on how well done you like your pork chops.

6. While these are cooking I have a skillet heating with a small amount of oil in it. Then I grabbed abuot three or four handfuls (depending on how much you want to eat and if you want left overs

I think they are great leftovers for lunch at work!) then I let them cook on a little under medium heat for 7 minutes, or until all the white from them being frozen is gone, but 7 minutes is perfect time.

7. Then I pour about 1/4 cup of water into the skillet and immediately cover with the lid and let it cook on low for 15 minutes.

8. After the 15 minutes is up I remove the lid and pour in soy sauce and garlic (again as much as you want to) I usually pour in quite a bit so it coats them nice.

9. Then turn up the heat to somewhere between medium heat and high heat, I usually lean to the higher

heat side so that I can get the juice to cook better. By this I mean you will usually

cook the green beans until almost all of the soy sauce and remaining water has evaporated so that the green beans are coated in a nice soy sauce garlic mixture, I always leave a little

extra juice.

10. While the pork chops and green beans are cooking I have a can of mushroom soup cooking on the stove while it is going on. I use Campbell's and I pour the can in the pot and then fill the empty can up with milk and pour that in with it. I cook it on medium heat until it boils, but be very careful it overflows

extremely easy, I let it happen before! So don't turn your back on it! Once it boils I turn it down to very low so it stays warm and make sure to continuously stir or it will stick.

Here is how your pork chops should look :-)

11. Then when they are all done you can either pour the mushroom soup over your pork chops or eat it on the side, I tend to do both.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Hey Y'all!Sorry I haven't blogged in a couple of days it was Adam and I's three year anniversary from when we first started dating so we were having celebration weekend. On Friday night we went to Bravo for dinner and it was pretty good, if you go try their peach bellini because they are amazing!! So yummy! I want one right now. Then we walked around Uptown some and visited the Apple Store and Boarders. Then we went and saw Season of the Witch. Let's just say I was not super impressed. Luckily we had a free movie pass so we didn't have to pay, because I would not have paid to see that movie! When we were waiting for it to start some people with a baby came in for a 10:30 movie and we were like great. One who brings their kid to a movie that late, two why to that type of movie and three just really! Well then another group of three people sat right in front of us and then the guy in front of us texted almost the whole time until his battery died! Truly who pays that much for a movie and then texts the whole time!? Then another group came in and sat behind us and the whole time they were smacking and popping their gum and talking! I really wanted to yell at them but oh well. The first part of the movie was pretty good but the end of it was not very good.

Yesterday my mom and I went and had another meeting with a florist and lets just say that I changed my idea on my bouquet totally! At first it was going to have red, yellow, orange roses and pink dahlias plus some calla lillies and asian lillies. Well now it is going to have some circus spray roses, red and yellow asiatic lillies, dark purple calla lillies, and then a lot of ostramerria lillies all different colors and some green buttons. I am extremely excited! Of course now I have to chose the florist! Decisions Decisions! I also got my new glasses they actually fit and don't hit my eyelashes! Yay! I can see!

Today I went to art attack and finished up my christmas plate I have needed to for over 2 months! Then it was of course football watching time with my parents and Adam joined us later on. Also have been working on some save the date invites because we need to get them all out! Think our next assignment is to get the baker picked out and what type of cake we want! Yay time for some cake testing!

Speaking of cake I am very sad I have not baked something since last Monday! I am planning on making some peppermint cookies, lemon cookies and oatmeal cookies. I am hoping to send them to my grandparents in Tulsa! Then it will be a real test on if I can ship my cookies and them stay in one piece and still taste good!

We watched The Sorcerers Apprentice last night and I still like it! At least Nicohlas Cage is not awful in this one! Then my mom and I watched When In Rome I really like that movie! I think I could watch it over and over it is so cute and funny! Then I see her in all these cute work outfits and I think I want to work somewhere I could dress up like that! If only there were places like that here! Like oh I don't know the Smithsonian was here! But alas there is not! Then I think hey maybe if I opened my own business then I could dress however I wanted. Like oh I don't know a cupcakery and/or an event planning business! Sigh if only I could figure out what I want to do :-/.

I am linking up with Just Married With Coupons for their Give it To Me Monday Bog Hop! Everyone should head on over and check it out!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

It feels like this week has been really long! And I still have one day left!

But thank goodness it is only one! It was only a 4 day week too!

They are filming a movie by us so our dirt parking lot where I normally park is closed so luckily I get to park in the nice paved lot across from my work :-) no complaints there.

So on for the review of something to watch Adam and I have been watching Bewitched.

We have finished the first season and just started the 2nd season last night!

It is actually a great show! It makes me laugh constantly! So if you are looking for a good fun show to watch and one to watch before go to sleep then it is a good one!

But you can tell it was made a long time ago with the housewife references

and the fact that her husband always seems to be flirting with other women but they are so funny.

Especially their neighbors who always see her doing magic and then her husband thinks she is a nut and makes her take medicine, he he. Anyway the first season is in black and white and

now the second season is in color it is weird I kind of liked it in black and white! I also kept thinking to myself I think she is really pregnant and then she got pregnant on the show and then I googled it and

guess what she was!

Anyway enough about Bewitched how about some pictures of my yummy green chili stew!

Look how excited I was chopping onions. Yes I had gloves on but it was for when I was grating the garlic but alas my hands still smelled like garlic the next day.

My chicken is ready, my onions & garlic are ready and look at all those yummy potatoes just waiting to be cooked :-) Yes I love potatoes.

Everything is added and ready to start cooking! Even my frozen green chili!

Here is my cooking companion Lady. Yes she is very excited because she thinks she deserves whatever I have drop to be her dinner. Especially when it is pasta night. She refused to take a picture with me :-(.

My lovely croissant rolls!

Yummy smells good! Time to let it simmer!

All done and ready to eat! Looks good and smells good too!

Adam was very happy I made him green chili stew! I now have to make more :-).

Well so there you have it! My first time making green chili stew and I would say it was a success. Thanks to Adam's brother-in-law whose recipe I stole :-). I even

had to make my parents some this last weekend because they were jealous that Adam got some and the didn't.

Want to know how to make it?! Okay I will tell you

Ingredients:

Meat (chicken, stew pork, etc)

1 white onion chopped

2 gloves garlic grated

1 can petite diced tomatoes

1 container bueno green chili

2lbs potatoes sliced unpeeled

64oz. chicken broth

salt

pepper

1. Cook the chicken, pork, whatever meat you pick in a skillet with some vegetable oil. Add salt and pepper to your liking. Cook till the pork is brown and the chicken is I guess white lol. And set off to the side.

2. Put your 1 chopped white onion and 2 cloves of grated garlic in the skillet and cook them. (I used the already minced garlic that you can find at the store when I did my parents it was sooo much easier)

3. Slice about 2lbs of potatoes, or however many you want, the more potatoes the better I say. Leave the peel on if you can get it clean enough.

4. Add in the chicken, onion/garlic, 1 can of petite diced tomatoes, 1 container of bueno green chili (mild, hot, whatever), potatoes, and 64oz. of chicken broth (you can use more or less depending on if you like it soupy or not).

5. Cook it on high until it starts really boiling, I let it boil good for about five min.

6. Cover with a lid and let it simmer for about 1-2 hours. Mine was usually ready a little after an hour it just depends on how tender you want everything. Add salt and pepper to your liking as it cooks.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Hey guys! Sorry for the delay again! I am really trying to write every night but it is not working but at least it is not weeks in between right?! Anyway let's see what to talk about! Oh I know it is the 18th which means it is now official 5 months exactly until the wedding! I am so excited! I am still ansy though about getting everything done! At least the DJ is done and after this Saturday the florist will be done! But that still leaves flower girl dresses, cake, decorations, candy bar, favors, tent, music list, invites, food tasting, and more! Yikes! I can do it! I can do it!

Also on the fact that it is the 18th I have hit my mile mark! Yup I official ran a mile today without stopping! I am sore but am so pleased! I am two days ahead of my goal! I am going to say by Feb. 20th I would like to be able to run 2 miles! Maybe my hopes are high but I think I can do it!

I am going to attempt to starting making more cupcakes, cakes and now cookies! I got stuff to make some oatmeal cookies and some peppermint cookies from scratch! I am excited! I really like this new cookie recipe book my mom got me! I am determined to learn how to make them all! I went to the store tonight and got stuff to make more green chili stew, per Adam's request and then I also got stuff to make a pot roast in my crock-pot! Hopefully this weekend! This weekend is special because on Friday the 21st it will be Adam and I's 3rd anniversary since we started dating! I am excited! I have been with such a wonderful man for 3 years and many more great years to come! And in 5 months I will be Mrs. Hurd! I bet I will have a lot of trouble signing my name for awhile!

How about a look back at my very first cupcake decorating experience with my moose brother Katie! They were not the best but hey you have to start somewhere! At least I have progressively gotten better. Especially the ones I made with Kristin on Monday! Anyway here they are we decided to combine Thanksgiving and Halloween in one shot.

These are the Turkey's we made we had to improvise on some of the decorations but they turned out

pretty good for our first attempt.

Here are our pumpkins, and yes they are yellow because we could not for the life of us

find any orange decorating sugar! Of course now I know where to look!

Anyway! So ya those were my first attempt at cupcakes! I would say I am a lot better now :-). I am making my way through the 3rd Eragon series book Brisinger (not sure spelled right) but it is about 756 pages long and I am now on about 366! It is sooooo daunting because I can read all my other books super fast because they are only like 300-400 pages long or less and then here I am trucking my way through this book! It is really good it is just long and feels like I am getting nowhere! Anyway so I decided the other night to watch the movie Eragon, which has no justice towards the book it is so wrong! Anyway so I was watching and I realized the cousin of Eragon is the cute english guy from Letters to Juliet! It was pretty funny! He looks a lot cuter now. If you have not seen Letters to Juliet to watch it now! Seriously! Well off to make lunch! Night Night!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Hey guys! Wow eight followers already! I am growing in number! Sorry I haven't written in the last couple of days they have been busy! Friday night I had a double date night with my MOH Katie and her boyfriend and Adam and I. We went to Olive Garden and then we went to Keenan's house to play Kinect! And let me tell you I never thought playing the Kinect would be so much fun! We played soccer, table tennis, a track competition and some dodgeball stuff. It was quite a workout! I was sore the next day! Especially after the track competition you had to jump hurdles, sprint, discus, long jump and javeline it was intense! Then afterward Katie and I went to her house and looked at bouquets and watched Glee!

On Saturday I had a meeting with our first florist, my mom and I went. She was great! She had a lot of questions and knew so much about flowers! She definitely helped! She had a great idea that instead of the flower girls having a basket and throwing flowers that they would have really tiny bouquets and then that way they are not dragging as much attention to themselves because she states that they can sometimes steal the show because they are so cute. She also suggested that instead of the mothers and grandmothers wearing corsages or flowers pinned on their shirts that they have 2 or 3 flowers kind of like a bouquet as well so that then they don't have to ruin their dress or have it on their wrist. She also said that to save on centerpieces to turn my bouquet and all the others into centerpieces! The hotel is supposed to provide us with some that comes with the package and she even offered to come along and add stuff to it to spruse it up some! I was very excited! She is supposed to call next week with a quote! Let's hope it is a good price! I have decided to have calla lillies, asian lillies and roses and dahlias in my bouquet I want it to be colorful because it is after all a summer wedding!

Tomorrow I am baking with Kristin finally! It should be a lot of fun! I made my Mom and Dad some green chili stew on Saturday evening for our family dinner and they loved it! I am glad I can now make that! My mom bought me a cookie recipe book and a crock-pot recipe book I am very excited to use them both! Well sorry this is so short I am tired and don't want to sleep away my day off! I am going to bake and hopefully get some cleaning done! Maybe even off to art attack if there is time! Night Night all! Will post some pictures soon!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

I am just not in the mood to find the silly camera cord and then plug it in and wait for it to load and then select the pictures and what not.

However, I intend to take more pictures of other things this weekend so I will load them all at the same time :-).

Today nothing very exciting happened. Got to have lunch with my mom and Adam at Flying Star today

which was a lot of fun so that was the best part of the work day!

Unfortunately Kristin was not there to help us! :-(

Another good part of today was I have no ran two days in a row! Can you believe it?! I can't!

I was not going to but then I thought hey maybe if I keep it up I will always want to go running when I get home from work. Besides I figured I would not get to run much this weekend.

But on the running note my goal for today was to run .60 without stopping, that would be .05 more than yesterday well so I walked .10 to warm up and then

I started running and once I hit the .60 mark I felt like I could do more so I decided to keep going and see how far I can run and guess how far I could run???!? Anyone?! Okay give up?

I ran .90 without stopping!!!!!!! That is .10 away from a mile without stopping and it is only January 13th! I still have 7 days till my goal of January 20th to be able to run a mile without stopping! I think I will make it before then! I was going to run a mile but it started to hurt so

I decided I better back off for the evening. But I was very proud of myself :-).

So for tonight pictures, and in light of the title of this blog are the cupcakes I made for Halloween and also the cupcakes I took to Adam's Dad's dinner party and they were a huge hit!

Here are all my supplies

Here is a close up of my cupcake wrappers

Here are some of the decorations I used for the cupcakes :-). The spiders are my favorite!

This is what inspired some of my cupcakes :-)

Now for my "poison apple" cupcakes I used Apple Cinnamon mix and added fresh chopped apples to the mix (as seen below)

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Hey guys! And yes I can finally say guys! I now have 6 followers! Thank you everyone! Hopefully it will keep growing and growing! Sorry I did not write anything last night I hardly slept the night before and then decided to make some green chili stew and it wasn't even ready till about 10:00! So I had every intention of blogging about it but I was so exhausted I fell asleep! I have not loaded my pictures yet of it but I will do that tomorrow and put them up on here with a recipe.

Well I can't believe it is only Wednesday! I keep thinking that it is Thursday for some reason! I really wish it was! I want it to be the weekend! Especially because I get Monday off from work! I have been looking at trying to find a job working somewhere that does weddings and events and am even thinking about applying places that do baking and cupcakes. But we will see if that happens, fingers crossed!

On the review of whatever I have watched front I watched Letters to Juliet last night, I had seen it before but I still love it! I am not sure why the girl is with her fiance in the first place because he is just selfish and doesn't care about her at all, but the other guy in the movie is definitely very cute! It is a cute feel good movie and I definitely needed one of those! I am stressed out! I feel like our apartment is going to collapse on me at any minute there is so much stuff everyone! And that is mainly because we have no where to put all of our stuff! Our lease is up at the end of March and I really would like to move to a rental house or something, but that is not looking like it is going to happen :-(. Adam and I have also started watching You're Cut Off, well the old season apparently, and it is kind of funny and then just sad that people let their children get that way!

On the workout front on Sunday I ran a whole half mile without stopping I was so proud! I am halfway to my goal of a mile by the 20th! If I keep it up then maybe I will make it! Then I didn't work out Monday or Tuesday and felt not good about it. So today after work I went and ran and I got up to .55 without stopping so I am .05 more than last time! Then I speed walked for about 20 miles and finished up a whole mile with walking .20 and running .80! I am pretty proud. I need to make myself do sit-ups after this blog!

So tonight I thought I would share some pictures of some "pie" and "owl" cupcakes I made a little while back with my friend Katie! Here they are hope you enjoy!

We did not take very many getting them cooked pictures so this is all I got. I thought the pies actually turned out pretty good. We used Cocoa to dye our icing to the crust color of a pie and then used M&M's as the pie filling so to me it looks like I have a chocolate, cherry, apple, blueberry, orange and banana pie ha ha I know not all of those are very appealing sounding. For the owls my eyes did not turn out as I had planned, my book told me to heat the Oreo's in the microwave for a few seconds so the cream would come off on one side well when I even did for a few seconds it just melted so I just decided to do it without doing that but it didn't work too well. The nose is a yellow M&M and the pupils are M&M's as well. They were supposed to have ears but I got to frustrated he he! But I think you can still tell what they are :-).

Anyway so that is my update for the night I might try and clean something before I go to bed so I don't go insane! Goodnight all!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Hello Kristin,You are still my only reader :-(. Hopefully one day I will have more than one! Anyway tonight's post is going to be short because I am ready to go to bed!

Exciting news.........we put our deposit down for the DJ so that is all settled that relieves a little bit of stress! also got my glasses taken care of and hopefully the new ones will fit me so much better so yet again a tiny bit of stress is taken off. No stress taken off is more wedding planning, sending out save the dates, and cleaning the house it is a pit and I can hardly stand it! We don't have enough room for everything unfortunately, especially my baking stuff!

Speaking of baking stuff here are some pictures of the Mickey Mouse cake I made my mother for her birthday. I even made the icing from scratch and colored it myself! :-) I was soooo proud of my first cake and soooo very proud of my icing job anyhoo here it is!

Here I am with my Mickey Cake!

Well those are all the pictures I have right now! More to come!

Sorry this is such a short post, work was pretty stressful today and had to make lots of appointments and meetings so that was a little stressing. Hopefully tomorrow will be a less stressful day, although I need to clean something or I will never be able to relax. I also did not get my workout in tonight so I am upset about that a little bit.

Oh on the review front I watched the first show of The Cape and let me just say I was less than impressed! I was hoping for something so much more! I watched all two hours of it and it did not get any better. It was the same situation over and over he would try and fight and would get hurt and some girl would come save him and then poof all over again! Although the guy is an attractive actor so that might save the show and the girl was I am sure attractive to men but to me I need more substance to the show.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Hey there! It is time for another blog! I am on a roll now 2 in a row :-). Workout is falling behind again hoping this next week I can get back on track. Not sure I am going to make my running a mile by the 20th but we shall see! It is a busy week with lots to do so fingers crossed. On my Bachelor watching last night I now have my two favorites and I am thinking one makes it to the end, but I don't think he picks her! Yes okay I looked at the spoilers and somehow they always seem to be right!

Trip down memory lane my mom and I watched Miracle on 34th Street last night, we always watch it at Christmas. Of course we watched it on VHS and towards the end I realized hey we had bought this on DVD! Hopefully next year I will remember. Adam does not like this movie because he thinks the little girl is creepy, but I disagree. I also watched part of Passport to Paris, which yes is a Mary Kate and Ashley movie, but it was my favorite of theirs when I was growing up. Let's just say I watched it about 16 times in a row! I loved it back then. Now watching it is a pretty silly movie but oh well! Tonight is the first episode of The Cape and I am pretty excited, I know it seems like a weird TV Batman, but I think it is going to be great!

So here are my new years cupcakes that I made which turned out pretty good I must say, at least I think.

Here is the material I used:

I found candy melts that had sprinkles in them so they would work for my "New Years Ball" instead of having to ice little lights onto them all separately.

I found these super cute cupcake liners and decided on a black and white theme!

Then I found these awesome black and white, cookies& creme crunch sprinkles!

Here are all my supplies together, including the donuts for my "New Years Ball" unfortunately I could not find smaller ones :-(

Here is my handy cupcake pourer, as I call it, you pour the batter in and then you hold it over the cupcake liners/pan and pull back the handle and it goes right in! So handy! They can

Here are my "New Year Balls" they are kinda huge cause I could not find smaller donut holes and did not have time to make them like little cake pops as I had hoped.

I have now found my signature way to ice my cupcakes here it is :-)

I think it looks like a rose!

Here they are with the yummy sprinkles!

And then here is the final product with the "New Years Ball" added, but they were a little heavy so I had to take them out before delivering them to my parents and Adam's grandparents.

I think they turned out pretty good if you ask me!

Anyway! So that was my first picture blog and my first posting of my cupcakes! More to come! Hope you all enjoyed :-). Hopefully one day they will be featured on Cup Cakes Take The Cake! Heres to hoping! I would just be happy with more followers :-) hint hint! Adios for now!

About Me

Hello all! I am a recent college grad who is just living her life! I am getting married in about 5months and a few days to the love of my life! I am so excited! I have decided to keep a blog of my random thoughts, ideas and experiences I have along my wonderful journey of life! Plus I just wanted a place where I could just write! I hope you all enjoy!